High-spatial-resolution monitoring of strong magnetic field using Rb vapor nanometric-thin cell

We have implemented the so-called λ-Zeeman technique (LZT) to investigate individual hyperfine transitions between Zeeman sublevels of the Rb atoms in a strong external magnetic field B in the range of 2500 - 5000 G (recently it was established that LZT is very convenient for the range of 10 - 2500 G). Atoms are confined in a nanometric thin cell (NTC) with the thickness L = λ, where λ is the resonant wavelength 794 nm for Rb D ₁ line. Narrow velocity selective optical pumping (VSOP) resonances in the transmission spectrum of the NTC are split into several components in a magnetic field with the frequency positions and transition probabilities depending on the B-field. Possible applications are described, such as magnetometers with nanometric local spatial resolution and tunable atomic frequency references.